If I Could Turn Back Time
by pika318
Summary: Gabriel and Lailah voice their regret about past events to each other. Based on Vol 12 and beyond.


**Moko-chan** : Yesssss, back with another new fanfic. Actually I've been thinking of writing something like this for a while now but you know, Volume 15 popped up and spurred even more thoughts.

This story will be focused on the Archangels Gabriel and Lailah as well as their regrets. Lots of headcanon.

Set at the beginning of Vol 12

* * *

 **One shot:** If I Could Turn Back Time

* * *

A young stout man wandered around a luxurious kitchen filled with many kitchen tools that were far too much for any normal person to use. He was feeling some craving for food after waking up in the middle of the night. However, he did not go to the kitchen to cook, of course, he had none of that kind of ability. Making his way to the large fridge of the latest model, he opened it up without caring about whether he would wake anyone up.

Well, truthfully speaking, it was not as though he could wake anyone up even if he wanted to, the owner of the house was rarely in and she had allowed the young man to help himself to the things in the house.

"I wonder if Miki-T has any Wari Wari-kun…" The young man mumbled to himself as he searched the fridge. He did not, however, find any of the cheap popsicles he had grown fond of. He did find his next favourite brand of ice-cream though.

"Ah, Higan Daaz…." His face lit up for a moment and then frowned when he realised it was not the flavor which he liked.

"Lemon Ginger? Only Japan comes out with weird flavors like this...I guess I'll just make do with that then." With a dejected sigh, he shut the fridge door, making the kitchen dark again.

"Urgh, should have switched on the lights earlier…" The young man lamented his poor planning and searched the vicinity for the lights. He had only been here for about a day so he still could not remember the position of the things in the house. After fumbling around the kitchen walls for a while, he finally found the lights. Pressing down on the switch, he squinted from the sudden brightness as light flooded the room..

"Now to get a bowl~" He said cheerfully. Just then, there was a light rapping on the door. He raised his head to look in the direction of the main door. The rapping repeated again, louder and sounding more urgent this time.

"Who could this be, so late at night?"

The owner of the house did not have much acquaintances as far as he knew and the people who lived down the street as her tenants were too terrified of her to be anywhere near the house. The young man put the ice-cream tub down on the kitchen counter and went to the front door.

Without even looking through the peephole, he unlocked the inner chain and opened the door. Before he could even comprehend who the other party was, the other party called out the owner's nickname immediately.

"Mik...Eh? Gabriel?!"

Realising it was not the owner, the lady at the door said the young man's name in surprise. The young man called Gabriel blinked a few times in surprise. The young lady in front of him was wearing modern Japanese clothing that did not emphasize her voluminous figure. Her long silvery hair was tied in a loose ponytail. Though Gabriel had not seen her for a long time, he could still remember her. What was different from his memory was that when she said his name, her voice was shaky like she had been crying, not the cheerful steady voice she usually spoke with. Her cheeks were also swollen, as though someone had hit her multiple times on the cheeks.

It took a while for Gabriel to overcome his surprise.

"Lailah? What happened to you?" He finally managed to say. Lailah lowered her head and tried to speak of her request but her words are interrupted by hiccups.

"Is Miki-T...in? I need...to talk...to her."

"Um, she's not in. Miki-T told me that she'll be back in the morning." Gabriel said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, not knowing what to make of the current situation.

"Then...can..I…" Lailah's voice trailed off. And just as Gabriel was straining his ears to catch anything she might say next, the face of the female angel suddenly distorted and she started bawling.

"Wagh! Agh!" Gabriel let out two separate yells. Once when Lailah started crying in a loud volume and the second as he poked his head out of the door only to see nearby apartments getting their lights switched on. Perhaps, they heard her.

"My daughter, my baby, I can't believe my baby….actually hit me! Wahhhh~~~"

"Ok! Ok! Keep it down! Come in, please. At least calm down ok?!" Gabriel quickly opened the door wider and pulled the crying archangel in.

* * *

"Sigh, so much for having ice-cream…" Gabriel grumbled as he sat at the counter. He threw a sidelong glance at Lailah who was beside him, eating the ice-cream that he wanted to eat. And obviously, she had no intention to share. In the midst of eating the ice-cream, tears were still flowing down her eyes and she was still sobbing.

"Hic...I can't even taste the ice-cream..hic." And now she was just rambling random nonsense.

"Look, can't you just talk to Nord about this?" Gabriel asked as he finally gave up on his hopes of getting some ice-cream.

"He lives below Satan…"

"Ah right, the walls are thin there. So, you wanted to talk to Miki-T about Emilia hitting you?"

"No! Of course not!" Lailah pulled the spoon out of her mouth and started pointing it at Gabriel angrily.

"I can understand why Emilia hit me. She must be really angry with me. What I can't accept is that Satan refuses to talk to me at all!"

"And...what does this have to do with Miki-T?" The only relationship between Miki-T and the one called Satan was that of a Landlady and her tenant. He did not think that Miki-T had any kind of authority over them. Though admittedly, if Miki-T gave an order, Satan and his subordinates might just follow out of fear.

"I was hoping...that she might bridge the gap between them and me…" Lailah said that and then let out a sigh like a deflated balloon. She put her head on the table and started muttering in a barely audible voice.

"As if that would happen...They must really hate me."

"Yeah, they hate me too so I know how that feels." Gabriel said lightly, staring aimlessly at the living room in front of him.

"I've done so many stupid things."

"We all did and now we're all paying the price for it."

"You let me off during that incident though." With her head still on the table, Lailah turned her head to face Gabriel. Her hiccupping had stopped and her voice was less shaky.

"Probably the only correct decision I made so far."

"If you came with us in the first place, maybe the battle against Ignora wouldn't have ended that way." Lailah sat up and cupped her chin in one hand while staring in the far off distance as well.

"Haha...all of you really think too highly of me…" Gabriel laughed bitterly.

"That's what Sataniel said. You won't believe how many times he mentioned your name." Lailah said with a slightly more cheery tone.

"I was just a coward, that is all."

"You remember the time I called you that huh?"

"Yeah, the worst insult I ever received. But that's a fact...If I had the courage to disobey Ignora's orders just once, maybe Lucifer would not have ended up like this." Gabriel said with deep regret.

Lailah raised her eyebrows when she heard the fallen angel's name being mentioned.

"What do you mean?"

"I still remember it well. When I went to Ignora's chambers after hearing that Sataniel had made his way to her, someone ran out of that place and bumped into me."

"That was...Lucifer…"

"Yeah. I was so surprised. I have not seen such a young angel for a long time... just as he tried to make his way past me, Ignora screamed at me to stop him."

With that, Gabriel shook his head slightly and said with a slight laugh as he thought back to that moment.

"I had never heard her give orders in such an uncollected manner before. I also knew that her intentions, whatever they were at that time, were nothing but hostile. But I still obeyed. I stopped Lucifer from escaping."

"I see...even if you weren't the one...someone would have caught him eventually." Lailah said, her eyes filled with sadness.

"I know...I can try to comfort myself like that but I thought...what if I changed my mind and led him to escape? Then Ignora would not have been able to do those things to him."

"Is that why you let me escape?"

"Maybe. I'm not too sure myself. Maybe I just wanted someone to complete what Sataniel wanted."

"Sataniel actually wanted me to take care of Lucifer. I couldn't do it." Lailah suddenly said.

"Are you confessing now? Man, we should really ask that Inquisitor Bell to come here and listen to us." Gabriel commented lightly, but Lailah continued talking like she did not hear him.

"I tried to stop him from going after Sataniel...You know what he told me?" Lailah asked, her lips were curled into a smile but Gabriel could tell that her words were filled with regrets. Gabriel just shook his head.

""You're not my mother! You can't order me around!" I was so shocked that I just let him go."

"I see….that's why you were there in that mess...You were searching for him." Gabriel deduced, piecing the situation together.

"Yes...but in the end, I feared for my own safety and I chose myself over him and I did that again and again. Sigh…Funny how people think we can do many things but…" Lailah stretched her hand out towards the space in front of her and then turning to look at Gabriel, a mournful expression crossed her face.

"We can't turn back time."

"Turn back time huh...If we could do that, then we wouldn't be stuck in this mess." Gabriel propped his chin on his large palm and asked Lailah in a curious manner.

"What would you have done?"

"Me? Hmmm…" Lailah looked towards the ceiling and made a humming sound.

There were too many things that they wanted to change, too many regrets that they had. Gabriel thought Lailah might have considered ideas like living peacefully with her family but the answer that came out was -

"I would have told Sataniel to forget about his wife and live peacefully with his son!"

Gabriel's eyes widened at the unexpected bold sentence.

"Don't tell me you actually…." Gabriel asked cautiously with an awkward smile on his face.

"Haha...Sataniel is a nice man you know. But his love for Ignora was too strong. To the point that I didn't even dare to joke with Lucifer that he can call me "mother". But right now, I have to be satisfied with the current situation. I am the wife of Nord Justina and the mother of Emilia Justina. And because of that, I met Satan and raised him to be the next leader."

"We can only move forward from here."

"That's right. Yosh!" Lailah stood up from her seat at the counter and balled her fists in a determined manner.

"I will speak to Satan again tomorrow!" Lailah declared with a resolute smile.

"Go for it." Gabriel said. He stared at the empty space again. He knows that they can never turn back time. The only thing they could do was trudge on with their plans and hope for the best.

* * *

"I don't think I can do it...I don't think I can do it…"

At the base of the common stairs that claimed the skin and dignity of many, the demon stairs of Sasazuka Villa Rosa, stood two archangels and one large dignified landlady.

"Lailah….you have to speak to Satan…" Gabriel said in an exasperated tone as he carried Shiba Miki's ridiculously large handbag.

"I'm scared, what if he hates me?!"

"I assure you, he already does. So much for the determination yesterday." Gabriel muttered under his breath while narrowing his eyes.

"You didn't see the look he gave me. He was disappointed in me! ME! The one who saved him!" Lailah was not wringing her hands and it looked like if she did not calm down, she would ask Gabriel to do the talking instead.

"Lailah." Shiba Miki said her name in a low voice.

"Eep!"

"Please, just speak before the situation drags on for far too long." The landlady said in an overly polite manner.

"If it makes you feel better, I can go up and see the situation first…" Gabriel offered in a weak voice. He was actually very reluctant as well.

"Please, please do." With that, Lailah quickly got behind Gabriel and started pushing him up the stairs.

"Sigh… fine."

The three then made their way up the stairs to proceed with the plans left behind for them centuries ago.

* * *

 **Moko-Chan** : Hope you enjoyed it. Anyway, most of the stuff here are headcanons, based on deductions of course.

Headcanon 1: During the battle between Sataniel and Ignora, Lucifer interfered only to see his father get killed. While escaping, he was caught by Gabriel.

Where did this headcanon come from: Gabriel commented in Vol 12 that Lucifer was the sole witness to a certain incident - probably the battle between Sataniel and Ignora.

Headcanon 2: Lailah took care of Lucifer when he was younger...at the Demon fortress Sataniel built.  
Where did this headcanon come from: Lailah allied with Sataniel from the time he escaped with Lucifer even till after his death. Well, can't expect the busy Demon King to have time for both Kingly duties and child care right? Most of the Japanese fans on 2ch assumed this as well.

Headcanon 3: Lailah had a crush on Sataniel.  
Where did this headcanon come from: He's smart, he's a great leader and she probably spent quite a bit of time with him so why not?

 **pika318:** If anyone wants Moko-chan to write about the flashbacks of the events in this story, please review :P


End file.
